Blade is a 1998 American vampire superhero film where a bereaved young immortal forms an alliance with vampires to take revenge on the reapers for his mothers death.
Filter out the gloss, the gore and the insistent techno score, and all you're left with are the gleaming pecs and bulging biceps of Wesley Snipes as Buff the Vampire Slayer.
Creative cinematography and non-stop, decently choreographed gratuitous violence make watching this comic-book movie entertaining. In fact, it's arguably the best comic-book movie of the year.
What is unusual about the film is the way it combines high-tech violence with the more up-close-and-personal violence of vampires. These characters and the aggressive way they attack each other justify all the film's considerable noise.
Such techno-action may give Blade enough power for a sequel, but one is left wondering whether there's any room for its central character to sustain interest beyond this flashy debut.
Sad then to say that Blade is, at best, second-rate pulp, hampered by excessive length, a thematically meandering screenplay, and a general lack of excitement.
